Best Practices for Integrity Virtual Machines

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with explicitly bus, device, and target arguments (see the hpvmcreate and hpvmmodify commands
for more details).
Getting the Most From Virtual DVD
Mapping virtual DVD drives to files is a powerful tool in deploying software on virtual machines. This
is especially true for software that requires multiple disks for installation. To illustrate efficient use of
virtual DVD functionality, consider the following example.
Suppose that a VM Host will be hosting multiple virtual machines running Windows Server. In
addition to the Windows Server 2003 installation media from Microsoft, HP provides – as physical
media or by download from the HP support web site – its Smart Setup media as well as patches and
support provided in its Smart Update media. It can be tedious walking to and from the datacenter
where the physical Integrity VM Host system is located to load and unload disks for such a software
installation. To alleviate this repeated inconvenience, proceed as follows:
1. First, find sufficient file system space on the VM Host for copies of the physical installation
disks. Copy the disks onto the file system using a utility such as dd. For example:
dd if=/dev/rdsk/c0t0d0 of=/hpvm/DVD/WinSvr2003.iso
Do this for each installation disk.
2. Create (or modify the existing) virtual DVD so that it maps to the first disk you need to install.
For example, you may modify the virtual DVD without rebooting the VM as follows:
hpvmmodify –P myvm –a dvd:scsi:0,0,0:file:/hpvm/DVD/WinSvr2003.iso
3. Inside the VM, install the software as you normally would until finished with that disk.
4. Virtually remove the current disk and insert the next one. This is best done using the
hpvmmodify command. For example:
hpvmmodify –P myvm –m dvd:scsi:0,0,0:file:/hpvm/DVD/SmartSetup.iso
You need not reboot the VM for this to be accomplished.
5. Inside the VM, continue the installation just as though you had physically ejected the old disk
and inserted the new one.
Subsequent installations may now be done by repeating steps 2 through 5 above – without having to
physically insert and eject the media. If a given file is to be used by multiple VMs for a virtual DVD,
then you will need to modify that file’s SHARE attribute in the HPVM device management database.
For example, to identify the file /hpvm/DVD/WinSvr2003.iso as a shared device, use the
hpvmdevmgmt command as follows:
hpvmdevmgmt -m gdev:/hpvm/DVD/WinSvr2003.iso:attr:SHARE=YES